Experimental study on accurate height change estimation method based on phase interferometry of band-divided SAR images

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an indispensable tool for low visibility ground surface measurement such as in the case of adverse weather or darkness. In recent years, the coherent change detection (CCD) technique has been recently established, which detect a temporal change in the same region according to the phase interferometry of two complex SAR images. However, in the case of general damage assessment following an earthquake or mudslide, the technique requires a height change quantity of the changed surface, such as for a building collapse or road subsidence. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel height estimation method by exploiting the frequency characteristic of coherence phases obtained using each multiple divided SAR image. The results obtained from experimental data demonstrate that our proposed method offers accurate height change estimation while avoiding degradation of spatial resolution.